Good catch on the splatter pattern Ed. That certainly does look more like a crater chain from a debris or cometary impact.

Now that is interesting. How do you get a splatter pattern/crater chain on a body with essentially zero gravity? It certainly can't be by stuff just falling back to the surface. Anything moving slowly enough to fall back on Phobos probably wouldn't be able to crater a marshmallow.I suppose a string of debris might stay together well enough to hit Phobos on a subsequent orbit but it seems rather unlikely. It seems at least as likely to be debris coming from an impact on Mars itself.

Great stuff, Phil & Stu!!! Now I know exactly how Phobos must have appeared to the crew of the spacecraft Rolling Stone as it approached Phobos in Heinlein's immortal novel...absent the industrial complexes and filled landing berths, of course...

Quick inspiration:

we sense therefore we are

unmanned and alonesolitary robots peer deeply into the Unknownseeing, tasting, hearing that which no human has yet known,like a splash of water or blast of radiationon tender skins

We, safe in the cradle, see vistas dreamed ofyearned for, in our infant dreamsby generations denied their future by tumult,by the restless and capricious nature of our speciesby priorities, set too often bythose who cannot see far horizons, even through eyes of silicon, gallium arsinide, feed horns and reflectors...

blindness is inexcusableas the spectrum of the Universe unveils itself, reluctantly, as bigger than our mindswhat challenge, what wonder, can possibly compare?

we must see, at least

in order that someday we may touch

--------------------

A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.

Dr. Willner said I'd need to ask Neukum directly for permission to post that other image, but he pointed out one that had been released on the Web in February (apologies if someone else already posted this elsewhere):

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